


Searching For Bluebell Flames

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ficlet, Friendship, Hogwarts Era, The Quidditch Pitch: From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-18
Updated: 2006-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-27 16:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10812888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: After Dumbledore's funeral, Harry goes off by himself to grieve. He finds comfort and enlightenment from an unexpected source.





	Searching For Bluebell Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Secondly, I'm finally writing responses to your requests in the [HP ABC writing meme](http://oh-honestleigh.livejournal.com/11737.html#cutid1). (Please note, there are still a lot of lonely letters; feel free to pick one if you haven't already). The following ficlet is the first one I've completed. It's for my dear friend [](http://chocfrgs4brkfst.livejournal.com/profile)[**chocfrgs4brkfst**](http://chocfrgs4brkfst.livejournal.com/). I'd hoped to complete it in time for her birthday April 15th but RL intruded and I didn't finish it until this morning. It's not totally shippy, alas, because quite honestly I have difficulty seeing and writing Harry with anyone but Hermione, and vice versa. Anyway I hope you like it, dear. The prompt was **MIRRORS, Harry/Luna**.  


* * *

Searching for Bluebell Flames

Harry Potter had always liked this room. Ever since he discovered it in fifth year, it had given him whatever he needed. Today, he needed a place to be alone, to brood, to think about a future without the guiding hand of Albus Dumbledore in his life. The day Dumbledore was buried had been the second longest day of Harry Potter’s life. The longest, barely three days earlier, was the day the headmaster died, murdered at the hand of Severus Snape.

Now, the day after Dumbledore’s funeral, Harry was preparing to leave Hogwarts, possibly never to return. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would leave the only real home he’d ever known under circumstances like this. Despite all the close shaves he’d had over the past six years, he’d always hoped he could complete his magical education at Hogwarts and go out into the world like any other wizard. But Dumbledore’s death and the traitorous actions of Snape and Draco Malfoy shattered Harry’s illusions about being able to live a normal life.

On this morning, Harry went to the seventh floor of the castle and paced three times in front of the blank wall across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. When he opened the door, he found a tiny, dark room with a low, sloping ceiling. The room was barely big enough for him to crawl into; it had seemed much bigger all those years ago when he slept in it. The cot in the room was tiny too; his feet stuck out from the end of it, so he pulled them up, tucked his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. Then he sat on the cot, light from the corridor peeking in through the grille on the door, and cried.

Harry didn’t know how long he sat there. At first the tears streamed down his face; eventually the stream slowed to a trickle. As he wiped the last of the tears from his face with his shirt sleeve he felt a strange sensation. The space he was in, a replica of his old cupboard under the Dursleys’ stairs, began to spin and swirl around him, the walls and ceiling pushing further and further out until the room was about twenty feet on a side and fifteen feet high. The room now had a pale-yellow ceiling and hardwood floors, while three of the four walls held floor-to-ceiling mirrors with a long wooden pole affixed about three feet above the floor.

Most remarkably of all, the door opened and in walked Luna Lovegood.

“Hullo, Harry,” she said calmly, as though she’d expected him to be there.

Harry wiped his eyes one last time. “Luna? How did you get in?”

“The same way you did, through the door,” she answered, her voice serene. She paused, looking at him carefully. “May I sit down?”

“Er, yeah. Sure you can.”

Harry assumed she would sit down in front of one of the mirrored walls. Instead, she ambled across the room and plopped down next to him on his cot. Looking at him intently, she wiped his cheek with the tips of her fingers.

“You’ve got tears on your face. And your eyes are red. What are you crying about?”

_Always so direct,_ he thought, biting his lip to stifle a laugh. It would be the first time he’d even considered laughing in the past four days, but now didn’t seem to be the right time. He didn’t want Luna to take it the wrong way.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I’m not exactly your closest friend, am I? Though I like to think that you and I _are_ friends.” She smiled hopefully at him.

He nodded. “’Course we’re friends. We fought together at the Ministry. And we went to Slughorn’s party together, didn’t we?”

Her smile broadened. “Yes. I had a lovely time, you know. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. Though I was quite surprised by Hermione’s behaviour.”

“I was too. I couldn’t believe she let that idiot McLaggen maul her under the mistletoe.” Bile rose in his throat at the thought of that Neanderthal putting his paws all over—

“Is that what you thought?” She rolled her eyes again. “Dear Harry, sometimes I think you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

She went to wipe a tear from his other cheek; he grabbed her wrist and clung to it. “What do you mean?”

“McLaggen wasn’t even there.”

Now Harry was really confused. “He wasn’t?”

“Did you see him there?” Her face remained serene, but her eyes were smiling.

Harry was about to say, “Of course I did,” but stopped short, realising that he’d never actually seen the hulking braggart at the party. “Hermione said—“

“She said what she wanted someone to believe. I happened to see her as she came out of the girls’ toilet. She was pushing her hair around to make it look messy, like someone had been trying to snog her.”

Luna wasn’t making any sense, Harry thought, shaking his head. “But why would she do that?”

She took his hands, pulling them to make him look at her. “Because she wanted to get someone’s attention, and she’s not the type to grab his hands. She wouldn’t make him look at her so she could explain what she’s feeling.”

He didn’t understand what she meant about Hermione. But Luna’s hands were small, soft and warm, and her touch comforted him. Harry felt the ice gripping his heart begin to melt.

“Thank you for coming to find me,” he said finally, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

Luna’s eyes drifted down toward Harry’s thumb caressing her hand. “You’re welcome, but mistaken. I came here for myself, not for you. Though I _am_ glad you’re here.”

“I don’t understand,” he answered, quickly removing his thumb. What could he have been thinking? He’d just broken up with Ginny the day before. Why was he doing this? Why was _Luna_ doing this? “You don’t have sit here with me, you know. I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

He withdrew his hands from hers and put them in his lap, twisting his fingers nervously. She grasped his hand again and looked him straight in the eyes. “I _do not_ pity you, Harry Potter. I am extending my condolences to you. There _is_ a difference. You could do the same for me, if you wish. After all, you’re not the only one who misses him,” she admitted, her voice shaking slightly. “Perhaps you came here to wallow in self-pity. If so, I’ll just pretend you’re not here and do what I came to do.”

Her words were like an astringent; they made his wounds tingle, but he knew, right away, that they’d helped. “What did you come to do?” he asked, his heart a bit lighter for the way she’d cut to the chase.

“I came to dance,” she said simply, pointing to the mirrored walls and to the dance slippers on her feet.

Standing up, Luna pulled away from him and moved gracefully – more gracefully than Harry had ever seen her move – toward one of the walls. He realised, for the first time, that her attire was unusual even for Luna. She wore pink ballet slippers, a pale yellow singlet, and a loose blue skirt that was slit up the middle to mid-thigh. Her scraggly, dirty blonde hair was pulled back from her face and formed an elegant cascade at the crown of her head, held in place by violet ribbons laden with pale blue feathers. Instead of her usual radish earrings and butterbeer-cork necklace, her only jewelry was a pair of simple pearl earrings.

Harry had never considered Luna’s looks before, but this morning he thought she was quite pretty. Her beauty, he realised with a start, came from within, from being totally herself and not what she thought others wanted her to be. That was one of Luna’s charms: the fact that she knew just who she was and, usually, had everyone else pegged too. As he pondered these new observations about this girl he’d known for two years, Luna grabbed the long wooden railing along one wall and began to move her arms and legs in a very measured, practiced way.

“What are you doing?” he asked, genuinely curious.

She gave him a placid smile as she warmed up along the railing. “I’m practicing ballet,” she explained. “I come here and practice whenever I’m feeling jangly. Ballet is a wonderful discipline. You have to focus so much on how you’re moving that you don’t have time to...think about your troubles.” Her voice almost broke, her face clouding over as she seemed to be thinking about recent events.

As Harry watched Luna, the most open and (he’d always thought) uncomplicated person he knew, dancing her troubles away, he felt something he hadn’t felt in a year – not since he’d been possessed by Voldemort in the atrium at the Ministry of Magic. What he felt was pure and simple and it filled his heart with a lightness he thought he’d never feel again. Slowly, carefully, he walked to where Luna was practicing and stood behind her, waiting until she saw his reflection in the mirror.

“Do you want to talk to me, Harry?” she asked, finally acknowledging him as she continued to sway and twirl.

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her to a stop just inches from him.

“Thank you for coming here, Luna,” he began, taking her hand in his, “and for not leaving when you found me. You could have complained that I’d ruined what you wanted to do. A lot of people here would have done that. But you’re different. You’re…special,” he said quietly, realizing he was about to do something he’d never thought he would do.

“No more special than you, Harry,” she replied, blushing as he moved closer to her. The pinkness of her cheeks complimented her silvery eyes, Harry noticed, as he leaned down and gently kissed her lips, just barely aware that those eyes were wide open.

He pulled back quickly. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I should have asked first.”

“I’m not,” she replied serenely but still blushing. “I liked it. Of course I have nothing to compare it to, but it was quite pleasant.”

She’d just admitted this was her first kiss. Part of Harry was disgusted that no one else had seen fit to kiss her before, but another part was pleased that he’d had the privilege. “So you’re not angry with me?”

Luna looked down at their joined hands, then back up at Harry. “It would be silly to be angry about something I enjoyed!” She was smiling broadly now. “You’re a funny fellow, Harry Potter. Not as funny as Ronald, of course, but few are,” she admitted, blushing even more deeply. Slipping her hand out of his, Luna stood on tiptoes and kissed him, a little more firmly than he’d done but not a real snog either. It was sweet and gentle, not passionate or even exploratory, and Harry realised that with Luna, he didn’t mind.

“That was nice,” he said. “Kind of comfortable, in fact.”

She tilted her head and gazed at him steadily. “I thought so too. I did not feel any Catherine wheels go off in my stomach; did you?”

He bit his lip then smiled. “No Catherine wheels. Maybe a tiny sparkler, but no Catherine wheels.” He couldn’t help thinking of Ginny. While her lips set off even more serious explosions inside him, he’d broken up with her and wouldn’t turn back. Somehow, though, this was different. “Do you think if we, er, practiced a bit more we’d get some Catherine wheels?”

“Probably not,” she answered quickly. “I like you very much, but not _that_ much. Anyway, I suspect that Catherine wheel feeling is over-rated. Eventually a Catherine wheel fizzles out, you know, like all fireworks do. I’d much prefer something that felt like embers. You know, a long, slow, steady feeling that takes a long time to die out. Or better yet, a bluebell flame. You can keep that going almost forever.”

A bluebell flame. In the deep recesses of his mind, Harry felt something jog and almost click into place. Almost, but not quite. He tried to freeze that thought so he could explore it later. Looking down at Luna, he gently kissed her cheek.

“Thanks again, Luna,” he said as he backed away from her toward the door. “You’ve made me feel a lot better. Have a safe trip home. I hope you find your bluebell flame.”

As he turned the door knob and left the Room of Requirement, he heard Luna call over his shoulder, “You’re welcome, Harry. I hope you find yours too.”

THE END


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